Chinese Hamster Weight

[Fluffagrams]

What would you say is the ideal weight for a female Chinese hamster?

When I weighed May in April she weighed 40g and she's actually lost 5g. At the time of her last weigh in she was quite lazy, spending so much of her time in bed. I was beginning to wonder if there was something wrong with her but I think a lot of it was down to her environment.

Since then she's got a bigger cage and a wheel that she's happy to use. She's more confident about coming out to play and has so much more energy than before. Could her weight loss be down to her increased activity levels?

[cypher]

I expect the loss is down to increased activity, when I first had Zephyr her weight did tend to fluctuate a bit for a while but it's been 43g for ages now, I would just keep an eye on it, weigh her every week or so just to check but she sounds fine, they all vary a fair bit.

[Fluffagrams]

I'm hoping that it's down to her increased activity but I'll keep an eye on her weight.

My boys always weighed a little bit less with Stitch being 36g through his adult life until just before he died, Garfunkel was 32g and Meat was the smallest at around 26g.

Do females normally weigh more than males or is it just an individual thing?

[Vectis Hamstery]

Male Chinese are usually bigger than the females, though each individual ham will have their own 'ideal' weight. I tend to go more by feel than what the scales say. Does the ham in front of me feel skinny? Are they solid to the touch or squishy? At the moment I have a female Syrian weighing 128g and another weighing 237g. Each is correctly proportioned for their body frame and neither thin nor fat. They just are built on different scales :) My boy Chinese are usually 45-55g and my girl Chinese 40-45g. I haven't weighed any recently though!

[Fluffagrams]

Male Chinese are usually bigger than the females, though each individual ham will have their own 'ideal' weight. I tend to go more by feel than what the scales say. Does the ham in front of me feel skinny? Are they solid to the touch or squishy?

That sounds sensible to me. :D May doesn't feel skinny to me at the moment and from my own personal perspective she doesn't seem to be overweight. She eats reasonably well and has quite a varied diet, she just seems to have more energy these days now she's got more confidence.

My boys didn't ever feel too skinny despite their lower body weights with the exception of Meat when he had issues with his teeth. After a vet visit and an adjustment to his diet, he put that weight on again. He always did have a small frame but he lived just over three and a half years so his weight can't have been too much of an issue. ;)

Thank you both for your advice, I'll keep an eye on May and if she carries on losing weight and starts to feel skinny then I'll take her to the vets to get her checked over.

[Vectis Hamstery]

For any ham who's lost a bit of weight or feels skinny I do an extra check on their teeth, even if they've just had their usual health check as teeth can grow so fast. I also check again that their water bottle is working. I also consider doing a urine test. If those are ok then I make sure to feed them extras and keep an eye on their wheel use. If they're overdoing it then I may restrict their wheel use until they learn to moderate and not over-run (this is most common in young hams who have wheels early. Since I had a robo run herself to death on the first night she had a wheel I wait to give full time wheels until they are older)

[Fluffagrams]

For any ham who's lost a bit of weight or feels skinny I do an extra check on their teeth, even if they've just had their usual health check as teeth can grow so fast. I also check again that their water bottle is working. I also consider doing a urine test. If those are ok then I make sure to feed them extras and keep an eye on their wheel use. If they're overdoing it then I may restrict their wheel use until they learn to moderate and not over-run (this is most common in young hams who have wheels early. Since I had a robo run herself to death on the first night she had a wheel I wait to give full time wheels until they are older)

I know her water bottle is working as I've been checking that regularly (particularly with this heat we've been having) but I'll have a look at her teeth. She's quite good with chewing, has a dog biscuit and seems to be determined to make extra doors in her wooden house but you never know. Stitch and Meat had dental problems (malocclusion) despite gnawing well on their wooden toys.

With the urine testing, where can I get hold of some testing strips? Do they sell them in pet shops or is it something I've got to get from the vets?

She has had a wheel in her cage since I got her at 10 weeks old. She didn't like the flying saucer she had at first but since she got the silent spinner she's been using it a lot more. The other night she was running for quite a long time so that's something I'll keep an eye on too.

Thank you so, so much for the advice. I really appreciate it.

[cypher]

You can get the testing strips in a chemist or online, they're the ones meant for humans btw, I got mine from Amazon.

[Vectis Hamstery]

I get the diastix from amazon. I wouldn't be using them right now if May was my ham, only if she lost any more weight or had other diabetes symptoms :)

[Fluffagrams]

I get the diastix from amazon. I wouldn't be using them right now if May was my ham, only if she lost any more weight or had other diabetes symptoms :)

Thankfully she's not showing any of the other symptoms of diabetes at the moment. I've also checked her teeth and they're looking fine so fingers crossed that it was just down to her increased activity levels.

[Fluffagrams]

I bought a new scales as mine was coming up with all sorts of odd figures when I was weighing a few things to go in the post. May weighs 34g according to the new scales and I weighed her when I got the new scales (which was 2nd July). Thankfully there has been no change in her weight at all between the two weigh ins with the new scales.

I am reassured by this and wonder if some of her earlier weight was down to the inaccuracy of my old scales, which were not only old but probably not of the best quality either.

[cypher]

The difference could well be down to the scales, you do need a good accurate set weighing such tiny hams. You can probably be more confident in the new ones.
She sounds fine & healthy though so I wouldn't worry about her weight, just keep a check for any sudden or big changes one way or the other.